Last year I attended You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown at the Covey Center for the Arts and it had a unique twist to it. It was called the ‘Silver Haired Edition’ and featured the Peanuts Gang as played by senior citizens. I went it expecting a gimmick and was surprisingly moved by the layer older actors had on material meant to be portraying children. I then saw Charlie Brown again silver haired at Murray Arts just a few months ago. While I do think Charlie’s worries about life make it uniquely situated for this concept I was curious to see if older casting added layers to other stories. This made me delighted when I saw The Empress was going silver haired for their production of Disney’s Descendants. I had also never seen this musical although I have seen the DCOMs that it is inspired from. Now I have seen it and it may not be as philosophically rich as Charlie Brown it is still a lot of fun and it’s refreshing to see people playing roles they wouldn’t normally be cast in.

One of the aspects that makes it harder to stage this musical with senior citizens is Descendants has a much bigger cast than Charlie Brown. In fact, I do wish in the adaptation they had streamlined it a little more because some characters like Jafar and Cruella are given very little to do. This probably makes sense for the typical high school production when you need to cast as many kids as possible but for community theatre it’s a lot of effort for small roles. In fact, they had to increase the age limit to 45 during the auditions in order to cast the production. This was funny to me because I could have auditioned. It’s the first time I’ve ever qualified for anything dubbed ‘senior.’ That’s a sobering moment!

If you haven’t’ seen the DCOM the story for this musical is the world of Disney all the villainous characters have been isolated to a exile island that they cannot leave. This includes the children of the villains who come to the attention of young Prince Ben who is the son of Belle and Beast. As he is about to be coronated he decides to welcome the teenage children of the villains to Auradon Prep and this includes Maleficent’s daughter Mal and Evil Queen’s daughter Evie (they weren’t very clever with those names!)

As would be appropriate for a DCOM the music is very pop-forward and bubbly but enjoyable. The only exception is “Evil Like Me” that feels plucked out of a Broadway musical and was sung by Kristen Chenoweth in the film. This is the highlight of the musical and Crystal Ahlemann owns this song as Maleficent. It made me wish all the adult villain characters had songs like that but I felt that way about the DCOM but then I’m 45 and not the teenager the movie/show was made for. Of course the teens are going to be the focus in a DCOM but you do trade campy fun for sweet sincerity.

That said Diana Sorensen, Amy Hallett and James Hutchings have a lot of fun as our leads Mal, Evie and Carlos respectively. They have a nice chemistry together as a cast and are enjoying getting to be rebel teens all over again. The production is directed by Adam Cannon and he did a good job using all of The Empress’ unique space including the stairways and platform above the stage. I also enjoyed the graffiti artwork created on the walls by Celeste Reece.

Some of the fun songs audience members will recognize from the DCOM like “Chillin Like a Villain” and “Ways to be Wicked” are amplified by bubbly choreography from Jords Shami. They are also helped by costumes designed by Candice Jorgensen and colorful wigs by Cheryl Cripps Richardson. It almost feels like the actors are going to keep wearing their brightly colored hair they look so at home with them on.

While I do think the story of Disney’s Descendants is probably better suited for a Jr length it’s still a bright energetic time at The Empress and a neat experience to see actors getting in touch with their teenage angst all over again. It is playing through May 23rd with a sensory friendly performance on May 16th and a sing along performance on May 21st (that would be really fun!) Tickets can be purchased here.

Disney’s Descendants features a book by Nick Blaemire with music adapted by Madeline Smith and orchestrations by Matthew Tisher. It is based on the 2015 Disney Channel Original Movie film with music by David Lawrence and direction by Kenny Ortega.

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